"Maybe we will and maybe we won't," the oil broker replied. "I'd give odds that he goes scot free."
"Then you'd lose," Kirby answered, smiling easily.
CHAPTER XXII
"ARE YOU WITH ME OR AGAINST ME?"
Miss Phyllis Harriman had breakfasted earlier than usual. Her luxuriant, blue-black hair had been dressed and she was debating the important question as to what gown she would wear. The business of her life was to make an effective carnal appeal, and she had a very sure sense of how to accomplish this.
A maid entered with a card, at which Miss Harriman glanced indolently. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but it was not wholly one of amusement. In the dark eyes a hint of adventure sparked. Her pulses beat with a little glow of triumph. For this young woman was of the born coquettes. She could no more resist alluring an attractive man and playing with him to his subsequent mental discomfort than she could refrain from bridge drives and dinner dances. This Wild Man from Wyoming, so strong of stride, so quietly competent, whose sardonic glance had taken her in so directly and so keenly, was a foeman worthy of her weapons.
"Good gracious!" she murmured, "does he usually call in the middle of the night, I wonder? And does he really expect me to see him now?"
The maid waited. She had long ago discovered that Miss Phyllis did not always regulate her actions by her words.
"Take him into the red room and tell him I'll be down in a minute,"
Miss Harriman decided.
After which there was swift action in the lady's boudoir.